Back to my favorite barn! (Other than mine.)
I’ve been buying hay from Roger for six years. He’s a great guy, who likes to wax poetic about the “ruination of society” by round bales. (His theory: Round bales don’t require as much labor to put up. It’s mostly done by machinery, moving bales with a tractor, therefore young boys no longer get the experience of working in the hay fields and barns, putting up hay manually.)
There aren’t as many farmers who even make square bales anymore, but despite the fact that recently we stocked in 40 round bales for the winter, I still like to have some square bales laying around.
A square bale is the ultimate portable sustenance for livestock, and quite handy if you need to move animals temporarily, either to a stall or to a different field where you don’t plan to keep them long (for example, while fixing a fence break in their regular winter field). We only bought 64 because we don’t expect to use them regularly, but they’re nice to have on hand.
We were counting them out here. We made two trips with 32 bales on the truck per trip.
It’s just a short trip over the hill on backroads to Roger’s barn. Rodney, loading the truck:
Roger, helping out with the final tie-down:
Then back to our barn, where the bales went up, up, up the elevator to the loft.
And that’s it!
Winter is now secured.
Hey, More Hay!
Sep
18
18
Comments
Add Your Thoughts
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Joell says:
:happyflower:
It is always a good feeling when you have the things you need for winter especially on a farm, you cant always just run out and pick up stuff. Even though we dont live that far out, I always make sure things are in place before the snow begins to fall, there is a lot to take care of when you are responsible for animals.
Suzanne,I dont want to sound pushy, but will you be posting a picture of you and Rodney soon?
On September 18, 2015 at 2:48 pm
Suzanne McMinn says:
The two of us together? But who would take it? JERRY???????!!!!
On September 18, 2015 at 4:12 pm
Joell says:
:happyflower:
Why not, or maybe a selfie, I think maybe it is time we see the both of you together, if you and Rodney dont mind.
On September 18, 2015 at 4:32 pm
Suzanne McMinn says:
I’ll work on this, Joell!
On September 18, 2015 at 5:36 pm
yvonnem says:
I agree with Joell!
On September 18, 2015 at 8:02 pm
STracer says:
I’ve been gone for a while, but always find a good story when I wander back. Rodney? I need to check out the back story. 🙂 And while I understand Roger’s theory of the ruination of the nation… Around here, the boys aren’t interested in farming, so two aging men switched to round bales to keep the animals fed. That is so sad. They all still live here, but won’t commit to the life.
On September 19, 2015 at 3:19 pm
ClaudiaL says:
Where do you keep your round bales? Aren’t they extremely heavy compared to the square ones? How do you feed with those? All I have ever seen is that they are on a truck with a roller sort of thingy and the round bail just gets rolled out. Are there smaller round bales? I see round bales here and they are covered with white plastic…they look like gigantic marshmallows!
On September 20, 2015 at 4:16 pm
Suzanne McMinn says:
The round bales are lined up beside one of the access roads on the farm, and covered in plastic. Yes, they’re incredibly heavy! They’re moved with a hay spear attachment on the tractor.
On September 21, 2015 at 7:54 am